


tastes like jell-o

by mialulu



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/F, Genderbending, Kissing, Minor Drinking, also keiji plays piano, fem bokuaka, gender swap, kagehina and keiji are besties, kagehina boyfriends, party au, some of them are girls some are boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:26:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29988372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mialulu/pseuds/mialulu
Summary: “Maybe it’s an opportunity to meet a nice boy!”Keiji’s eyebrow twitches and resists the incessant urge she has to sigh, possibly roll her eyes, or groan, or all of the above. Keeping her face flat, she responds, “Yeah, maybe.”AKA: Fem! BokuAka AU where they meet at a party.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 11
Kudos: 36





	tastes like jell-o

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys i'm aware this will not gain a lot of readers but i hope it reaches its intended audience!! i think the hq fandom needs way more wlw fics, so here i am. this is also pretty self indulgent.
> 
> enjoy <3

“Maybe it’s an opportunity to meet a nice boy!”

Keiji’s eyebrow twitches and resists the incessant urge she has to sigh, possibly roll her eyes, or groan, or all of the above. Keeping her face flat, she responds, “Yeah, maybe.”

“You’re so pretty, Ji,” her mother continues. “It’s a shame you turned down that boy last week. What did you say his problem was?”

“There wasn’t a problem, I just didn’t see him in that way. I’ve only tutored him twice,” she says, chewing on the rice and curry her mother had made her for dinner.

“Well, you might if you try!” her mom smiles sweetly, throwing her utensils in her mouth and chewing dramatically, because that’s the kind of person her mother is; dramatic. It wasn’t always a bad thing, but when her mom felt an emotion, her expression levels were dangerously drastic. Maybe that’s why Keiji is so mellow, because the extremes of her mother’s emotions wore her out from a very young age.

“Misaki,” her grandma says, speaking to her daughter, “when did you get your first boyfriend again?”

Her mother huffs and pulls her lips into a straight line. Frustratingly sticking more food into her mouth, she exclaims, “I’m trying to save Keiji from what I went through! Unlike me, she has opportunities to get a boyfriend, and I’m just recommending she takes them.”

“She was twenty-four,” Keiji’s grandmother says, smiling.

Keiji smiles and her mother exasperatedly sighs.

This is how most nights went. Keiji lived with her mom, her grandma, and her two cats.

A loud knock sounded on her door.

And, most of the time, she lived with her best friends, too.

“Sorry, they’re early,” Keiji says, wiping her mouth politely and standing up from the kitchen table. While she walks through the pale hallways to her front door, one of her cats immediately runs towards her, rubbing against her leg and following her closely.

When she slides the door open, she’s faced with two familiar faces, those of which are quickly out of sight while the taller one shoves the other’s head down into a deep bow. 

“Sorry, we’re early,” the dark haired boy says, letting go of his boyfriend’s hair and allowing both of them to stand up straight.

“Ow, Kageyama!” the small one exclaims, rubbing his head. “She doesn’t care!”

“You interrupted dinner,” Keiji says blandly.

The cat at her leg completely distracts the ginger as it jumps into his arms (not that that was too far off the ground, anyway), and a bubbly laughter fills the hallway as he holds it up happily. “Kumu!” he exclaims, rubbing noses with the cat.

“Go upstairs while I finish dinner,” Keiji instructs, walking back towards her kitchen while the boys take off their shoes. “Hinata, take Kumu with you.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Hinata says, already slipping up the stairs. 

Keiji calmly returns to the table, and within a few more minutes, she’s allowed to go to her room to accompany her friends.

To any outsider, Keiji assumes, their friendship would look extremely dysfunctional. Keiji couldn’t explain it, but they grew up together, and that’s all they needed. (Keiji thinks that if she didn’t know them, and met them now, she would not be friends with them.) Kageyama was actually the last to join their friend group, since they hadn’t met him until fifth grade, when all three of them were paired with each other for a science project, but the three of them blended easily, and when it was just two, sometimes, that was easy, too.

Keiji was surprised at how little changed when Kageyama and Hinata started dating. Well, maybe they weren’t dating, but Keiji knows they kiss and cuddle and go on dates. She was scared -- terrified, but she didn’t tell them -- she would feel left out, but she knows they love her just as much, just in a different way.

As she enters her room, seeing Hinata on her floor rolling around with Kumu, and Kageyama on her bed with Kitty (her other cat) on his stomach, she breathes out a laugh.

Kageyama moves his eyes only to look at her as she gently shuts the door behind her. “You can breathe, Kageyama,” she says. Kageyama always stayed dead still when Kitty was laying on him, because 1) Kitty was skittish and only likes Kageyama and 2) he thinks animals hate him. 

Kageyama, seeming to take her advice, inhales. Keiji wonders if he’s actually been holding his breath.

“Sit against the bed, ‘Kaash,” Hinata says, putting Kumu down quickly and bouncing onto the bed; Kageyama does, in fact, gasp loudly as Kitty jumps and runs away from the sudden movement.

“Why?” Keiji asks, but sits against the bed on the floor anyways.

“Wanna show you how much better at braiding I’ve gotten, that’s all,” Hinata says, and for a second, it sounds like Hinata has some twinge of mischief in his voice.

Keiji sits still for a while as she feels Hinata take out the clips she almost always wore in her hair, him brushing his fingers through her hair gently. She shuts her eyes at the feeling.

“So, I was thinking…”

Her eyes open in disappointment. “That’s not good,” she mutters.

“No! It’s good! I swear!” he defends, and Keiji can feel his hands still in her hair, like he’s doing that thing he does when he’s determined and clenches his fists.

“No, it’s not,” Kageyama says.

“Well, what were you thinking about?” Keiji asks, nudging his hand to silently tell him to keep playing with her hair. It works.

“I was wondering if you made a decision about the party…”

After Hinata told her about it yesterday in front of her mom, her mom hadn’t shut up about it once, hence the conversation from earlier.

“I agree with Kageyama,” Keiji says, her face falling flat, even though her back was faced towards both of them. She hoped her voice made up for her expression enough. “Your thinking is never good.”

“You’re wrong! We know basically everyone who will be there, and they’re all super friendly!” Hinata defends. “Mostly girls will be there, our team, and I think Nekoma’s boys team, too.”

“Is Kageyama going?”

“He said he’ll go if you go,” Hinata says. 

“I didn’t say tha-”

Keiji hears a soft  _ slap  _ behind her. She tries not to giggle.

“He said that! Please,  _ Keijiiii _ !”

“Will there be alcohol there?”

“Yeah, but nobody’s going to get black out drunk.”

“Including you?”

“Including me. I will not.”

Keiji thinks about it for a good thirty seconds. She thinks about how she will most likely either a) be sitting in a corner with Kageyama the entire time or b) trying to grab onto Hinata’s shoulder for security and make herself look small even though she’s four inches taller than him.

Then, she thinks about her one (1) school friend, and asks, “Is my team going?”

“The girls are, yeah. You know someone on the team, right?” Hinata asks.

“Konoha, yeah. She plays.”

“There you go! It’s perfect!” Hinata says, and Keiji kind of wishes she were more like him.

“I’ll think about it if you keep playing with my hair.”

He does, and so does she.

\--

Keiji sort of realized from the beginning that there’s really no way she  _ wasn’t  _ going to go.

So, she sits on the bench in front of the piano in her home and plays as calmly as possible to calm her anxiety while she waits for her friends to pick her up.

Keiji had been playing the piano since she was in second grade, so she nearly never messed up on pieces she knew anymore. Whenever she felt anxious, she adjusted the bench, sat down, and played until her hands stopped shaking. Some people like to fidget when they’re anxious (her included, she had an issue with playing with her hands), some like to listen to music, but playing the piano was technically both. It worked out.

Her phone chimes with a notification, and she slowly stops playing to pick up her phone and check what it is.

**Hinata :)**

**\--we’re here !!!**

Keiji inhales and exhales deeply before standing up, wringing her hands a few times and walking towards the front door.

“Love you!” her mom yells as she passes the kitchen. “Text me if you need me to pick you up!”

“Love you,” Keiji says, walking out of the front door and shutting it behind her. She steps down onto her lawn and crosses it towards the street, where a car awaits her.

A door is swung open and she’s met with Hinata’s face, gleaming happily at her as he scoots over for her to sit next to him.

She does, shuts the door, and the first thing Hinata asks is, “Why are you dressed like a closeted lesbian?”

Keiji looks down at her outfit. A black long sleeved shirt, a jacket, and cargo pants. She frowns, looks up in thought, and says, “Um...”

The topic of her sexuality had never been discussed before, and it almost made Keiji nervous for it to be brought up now, in front of the random man in the driver's seat of the car that she didn’t know.

“Oh! This is Daichi,” Hinata says, gesturing to the driver with brown hair. 

“Nice to meet you,” he gives her a smile through the mirror. She smiles and nods back.

While they drive, Keiji examines Daichi a bit, notices his polite resting face but the stern glints to it. He also had big muscles, unlike Hinata or Kageyama. Maybe she should be hiding behind him, instead. 

“Okay, we’re here,” he announces, snapping Keiji out of her thoughts. 

Keiji’s heart rate increases as Hinata suddenly jumps out of the car, quickly unbuckling her seatbelt and following after him. She hurriedly scurries to the front door from behind Hinata, Kageyama and Daichi, and can hear the hum of blasting music inside even before Hinata opens the door (was he allowed to just walk right in?!), but as they take a step inside, it proves to be much louder within the walls.

Keiji looks around, taking in her environment.It was dark in the entrance, but just down the hallway, she could see plenty of bodies and -- were those disco lights? She assumed the faint yellow hue was from a kitchen somewhere.

The three boys don’t take off their shoes, instead walking right through the hallway, where Keiji is stumbling between choices. Keeping them on felt insanely impolite, but if everyone else had them on, should she just keep them on? What socks was she even wearing? Her sneakers weren’t that comfortable, though.

“Keiji, come on!” Keiji nearly gets whiplash at how fast her head turns up towards Hinata. Disregarding the shoe inner monologue, she keeps them on, rushing towards Hinata before he gets sucked into the crowd.

“Chibi-chan!” Keiji hears an unfamiliar voice say, and then Hinata is getting sucked into the crowd, Keiji’s mouth stuttering like a fish, wanting to say something like _hold on_ but not really wanting to say anything at all. She follows Hinata and, more specifically, Kageyama, the best she can, because Kageyama can actually be seen amongst the bodies whereas Hinata’s head is already out of her vision.

The warmth of bodies and different fabrics begin drowning her the second she gets swept up in the swarm of bodies, and her senses slowly start getting overwhelmed, from the music, to the people touching her, to the warmth, and yeah, maybe she  _ should  _ have a drink.

Hinata is suddenly in front of her, grabbing onto her hands and beaming at her. “Kitchen! Let’s go!”

Keiji nods, thankful to get out of there, at least, and lets Hinata drag her through the crowd of people towards the room where the magical yellow hue is coming from.

When they reach the kitchen, the music is significantly less loud, and there aren’t nearly as many people. Well, Keiji didn’t mind this as much. Hinata takes her and Kageyama to the counter, where there are a few other people there, but they look chilled out, compared to everyone else.

Keiji turns her attention down to the counter, where there’s -- is that Jell-O?

“Is that Jell-O?” Kageyama asks.

“Oh, yum!” Hinata exclaims, bringing a blue one to his mouth and downing it. Except, probably as it’s halfway down his throat, he chokes, shutting his mouth to prevent anything from coming up.

“What?!” Kageyama and Keiji ask.

One of the tall, blonde girls across the kitchen snickers at Hinata and informs them, “They’re shots, dumbass.”

Hinata swallows hard and says, “Yeah, I know that now! Stupid Tsukishima,” he mumbles the last bit. Then, he grins up at them, licking his slightly blue teeth with an even bluer tongue, and says, “They’re not bad! Try one!”

Keiji hesitates. She had never had a drink before, besides the one time she had a breakdown over her grades and tried some of her mom’s vodka (seriously, it was a breakdown) and then got scared and made herself throw it up.

As she hears more people clamber into the kitchen, she feels a sense of urgency in the anxiety that more people would be watching, or something, and quickly reaches for the yellow one.

A hand meets her on top of it, going for the exact same one she was going for, and she flinches as she withdraws her hand, looking up to apologize.

The girl diagonal from her is still looking down at her hands, and Keiji immediately stuffs them in her pockets, feeling insecure. She examines the girl, and first notices her hair, which is pretty wildly put into a bun with lots of pieces falling out that frame her face. Her hair was grey, or, some of it was? Grey and dark grey? Was the dye job supposed to look like that?

And then her eyes, golden and still looking at where she had retracted her hands, and her hooped earrings and the tank top she was wearing that showed a tiny bit of cleavage.

“You totally have setter hands!” The random girl exclaims, finally looking up Keiji. Her eyes are wide and her face holds nothing but pure amazement and shock, and Keiji isn’t sure how to respond to that.

“Um, thank you?” Keiji says, and thinks she probably looks just as amazed, because this girl’s eyes and eyelashes and hair is unconventionally very beautiful, and Keiji is slightly stunned.

A girl with black hair comes up from behind her and begins dragging her by the shoulders out of the kitchen. but she keeps her eyes on Keiji.

“Come on, Kenma is waiting for me!” the black haired girl says, and she’s also got wild hair, and continues to try to drag the girl away.

She finally looks away from Keiji, grabs the yellow Jell-O shot, and hands it to her. “You can have this, since you have pretty hands!” she says, and then is dragged away and Keiji can no longer see her within the bodies.

Keiji sighs, her heart returning to normal, and looks down at her Jell-O shot, sniffs it, then throws her head back and swallows it.

_ Ew _ , she thinks, and then,  _ I’m gonna have one more _ . Then, she looks up, does one full 360 for Kageyama or Hinata, and realizes they’re no longer in the kitchen.

Well.

She stands still for a second, then decides she’ll maybe wander through the crowd in circles, or something, so she looks like she’s looking for someone (she is) and maybe find a bathroom in the process. So, she lets herself get sucked into the many girls and boys too, and moves around within them.

She finds a couch on the edge of a wall that is completely occupant-free.

God must be real. She thanks heaven for this couch.

Feeling hot and exhausted just from being in there, she takes off her jacket as she flops backwards onto the cushions, sighing in content when there’s actually a slight bounce underneath her, giving her a soft landing. She folds the jacket carefully into her lap and sits still for a second, wondering if the alcohol was hitting already. She was pretty thin, but is that even possible? Either way, she feels tired, and starts thinking about whether or not she’ll be able to fall asleep when the music is so loud she definitely wouldn’t be able to hear herself speak if she were to right now.

She looks up, and almost physically jumps when she locks eyes with someone in the middle; silver haired girl from before. She swallows and does her best to maintain eye contact as some sort of… flirting? Could she count that as flirting? She hoped so.

And then  _ oh god, she’s coming towards me _ .

Before she can even comprehend what’s happening, a body is thrown next to her, and she watches as the girl experiences the same bounce she did when she fell onto the couch. She averts her gaze, feeling incredibly nervous now that she was literally right next to her.

“Hi!” the girl yells into her ear.

Keiji turns her head slightly to look at her, and she definitely looks a bit different close up; her face is flushed and some of the pieces framing her face are sticking to her forehead with sweat, and her lipgloss is definitely smudged a little, hopefully from drinking.

“Hi,” Keiji says, and then embarrassingly looks away when she realizes she couldn’t even hear her own voice. “Hi!” She does her best to yell over the music, but aims it at the floor.

“Do you play volleyball?” The girl asks her, keeping her voice at the same yelling level.

Keiji turns to her and shakes her head.  _ Wow, her eyes are huge up close _ .

“What?!” Keiji almost flinches at how close she gets, her eyebrows raising up her forehead. “You so should! What do you play?”

“Piano,” Keiji mainly mouths, and gestures with her hands like she’s playing keys.

“Piano!” the girl repeats. “That’s sick! Are you good?”

_ She’s interested. Is she interested in me? Or is this a friendly conversation? _

Keiji shrugs. “I… I’ve been playing since I was a kid,” she responds, leaning towards the girl’s ear so she can hear her properly. Getting this close makes her nervous, and she feels like she should have worn short sleeves.

“You’re probably really good!” The girl says, grinning. “You’d also probably be really great at volleyball. Your hands are perfect!” 

“Are they?” Keiji asks, and for some reason, feels herself smiling, too. It was contagious.

The girl gestures towards where she was wringing her hands together in her lap and says, “Yeah, let me see! I’ll show you!”

Hesitantly, Keiji unclasps her fingers and holds one up for the girl to see, and is shocked when she immediately connects their palms together. They’re both kinda sweaty, but that’s okay.

“Yeah, see! Your fingers are long, perfect for setting! You might even be able to palm a volleyball!” She exclaims, looking at Keiji and only Keiji while she speaks easily over the music.

Keiji turns away to giggle slightly and turns back to say, “Mm, I don’t know about that one.”

And then, the girl slots their fingers in between each other, and is connecting their hand in it’s spot in the air between them. Keiji can feel her face, it’s probably bright red, and she slowly closes her fingers over the girl’s hand, too, so that they're holding hands. She looks up at the girl, who’s smiling brightly at her.

“Do you wanna dance?” She asks.

“Um…”

But the girl is already dragging her into the group of people, gently tugging Keiji’s hand behind her as Keiji drops her jacket on the floor, stammering, trying to maybe reject the offer, but also really wanting to dance with this girl.

When she stops, she pulls Keiji close to her, their hands still connected, and Keiji can finally see their height differences properly. The girl was probably three inches taller than her, which was good. Not enough to make her feel suffocated, but enough to make her slightly have to look up at her.

The girl begins slightly moving to the music, and Keiji envies how naturally fluid her movements are, she can easily get loose and move to the music, and Keiji isn’t good at eye contact, so she’s trying really hard to look at anywhere  _ except  _ her chest.

“Are you a third year?” The girl leans down to Keiji’s ear to ask.

Keiji stands on her tip toes a bit to lean into her ear and say, “Second. You?”

Now that they had some sort of communication system, lips close against each other’s ear, their bodies were almost flushed completely together, and the girl’s body was incredibly warm, but it felt nice to Keiji.

“Third year! You come to these things often?”

“Is this twenty questions now?” Keiji teases.

“Hey! Are you teasing me?”

Keiji lightly laughs and says, “No, I don't come to these often, do you?”

“Yes, and I can tell,” the girl laughs, and Keiji is embarrassingly glad their heads are in the position they are, because she could not do eye contact during the teasing. No way. “You’re barely even dancing!” 

“It’s not my thing.” Was the alcohol making it this easy to talk?

“I can help,” she says, and then Keiji feels a hand on her shoulder, and it draws itself down, through her shoulder blades, to the small arch of her back, where her shirt is riding up, and her hand is directly on her skin.

Holy shit.

The girl pulls back and looks down at Keiji, and she genuinely can not tell if she looks smug, mischievous, or if her grin is just a sign of pure happiness. She doesn’t really care. She feels like putty in this girl she just met’s hands. She grips their hands together harder as she’s pulled against the girl’s body so she can sway their hips together to the music, a song Keiji wouldn’t recognize even if she tried right now, and even though she’s bad at eye contact, she’s practically swimming in the girl in front of her’s eyes right now.

**sorry to be cringey but i actually imagined this with killshot by magdalena bay playing in the background [lip bite]**

Someone bumps into the side of Keiji, and she turns her body towards the culprit out of reflex, only to further bump into them, and she barely sees the flash of a red solo cup hit her chest before she feels room temperature liquid running down it.

Well, at least her shirt is black.

“Oh god!” The girl next to her exclaims, pulling back her cup and having a panic look etch itself onto her face. “I’m so sorry! I’m sorry! I really didn’t mean to!”

“It’s fine,” Keiji mumbles, not bothering to try to talk over the music, annoyed but trying not to direct her annoyance at the girl who did it, because she knows she didn’t mean to spill alcohol on her shirt.

Then the girl’s hand that she’s attached to starts pulling her through the dancing people again, and then they’re in a dark hallway, possibly the one she came in from, and then she’s led into a door, the door is closed, and the light is turned on.

Ah, it’s a bathroom.

“What the hell was that about?!” The girl fumes, her grip on Keiji’s hand hardening, probably in anger. “Sorry, I guess I shouldn’t have let you turn around,” she says, pouting.

With the walls blocking out a lot of the music, she can hear her speak normally, and Keiji decides she really likes her voice.

Containing a laugh at her pout, she says, “It’s okay. Not your fault.”

“Oh! I have an idea! I’ll go grab your jacket!” She says, and Keiji can see her face light up, before it drops a little when she looks down at their hands. Her lips turning upwards, she pulls Keiji’s knuckles towards her lips and gives them a soft kiss before untangling their fingers reluctantly. “I’ll be right back.”

Keiji is left dumbfounded as the girl walks out of the door and closes it behind her, leaving her in the muffled room alone. She inhales deeply, exhales, and presses her palms to her cheeks. There’s a mirror right behind her, she knows there is, but she doesn’t want to know how red she looks right now.

Feeling bothered by the wetness turning sticky on her chest, she carefully removes her shirt from over her head, figuring that when she gets her jacket, she can just zip it all the way up her chest and it won’t make a difference. 

She feels the cool granite behind her and hoists herself up onto the sink, looking at the wooden floor blankly, since her mind was feeling quite fuzzy now. She turns her eyes down to her chest, and is vaguely aware that she’s not wearing a shirt anymore, but her black bra is conservative enough and she hopes the girl doesn’t mind when she comes back with her jacket.

Soon enough, the door opens and in comes the girl, it’s closed behind her, once again keeping the music muffled, and she freezes when she looks at Keiji.

“Oh, sorry…” Keiji says, thinking that maybe her chest was bothering her, and went to cover it with her hands.

“No! That’s…” she pauses, taking a step towards Keiji and looking at her like she’s thinking. “It’s fine. Here, can I clean you up?”

Keiji slowly nods and lets her hands fall into her lap, feeling slightly embarrassed about her small chest on view for the girl, but the light buzz in her brain calmed any anxiety she was feeling.

The girl takes Keiji’s jacket and sits it over her shoulders, then grabs a washcloth from the sink next to Keiji, gets it wet, and then gently begins swiping it in between Keiji’s boobs and on her chest. Vaguely, Keiji is aware of how this might be really weird to her if she were sober. 

The cool water feels nice on her chest, getting rid of the stickiness successfully, and she can feel a little bit of the girl’s body heat, and she feels incredibly relaxed in the atmosphere. She looks up and meets the girl’s gaze, and something shifts, because somehow their faces are really close and Keiji is shirtless but still warm and the girl’s lips look really soft…

“Can I…” the girl says, and Keiji doesn’t bother letting her finish, instead leans up and connects their lips.

At first it was just a brush of lips together, and Keiji is trying to figure out how to even kiss someone, but she’s helped out when the girl tilts her head and leans into her and  _ now  _ their lips are slotting together.

Keiji doesn’t know how to kiss, but it’s either really easy, or this girl was an amazing kisser, because their lips moved easily together, soft, and her lips were probably a little bigger than Keiji’s, but it felt so nice and Keiji did not want to stop.

Because of the fluff in her brain and the added sensation in her lips, she wasn’t really thinking (again, at the back of her mind she was thankful she wasn’t sober) as she brought her hands up to rest on the girl’s thighs, which almost cause Keiji to gasp at how muscular they seem. She feels a hand drop the washcloth to the side and rests on her ribcage, the girl’s thumb rubbing gentle circles into the slot between her ribs. If she didn’t feel like putty before, she now feels like one of the Jell-O shots they took earlier, and lets a sigh release through her nose as her shoulders droop.

And then--

“Kou! We gotta go!”

The door bursts open, and it takes Keiji probably a solid four seconds to open her eyes and comprehend what was going on as she separates from the girl, their heads turned to the door. Keiji recognizes the crazy black hair from before. Wait, Kou? Did she say Kou? Was that the girl’s name?

“Sorry to interrupt, but the cops are here. We’re leaving, let’s go!” 

“Ah, um!” The girl says, and grips Keiji’s jacket and starts putting her hands through the holes for her. “Okay, jacket, come on, let’s go.”

“I need to find my friends,” Keiji blurts, and even though she isn’t sober, she at least is focused and well aware she needs to make sure Kageyama and Hinata are okay before leaving with some girl she just made out with, even though she really, really wants to.

“What? We don’t have time!” The girl says, zipping up her jacket for her and pulling her off the sink. Keiji feels a little weird when she actually has to stand up on her own again.

“No, I can’t leave them. I don’t even know how to get home,” Keiji says, and is walking out of the bathroom door with the girl and her black haired friend.

The second she gets out, she notices the music is gone and the only sound is all of the people freaking out and trying to get out of the house around her.

Keiji stands on her tip toes and searches the area, and finally spots orange and black hair within the panic. “I see them! I’m gonna go,” Keiji says, and starts walking towards them.

She feels a hand tug her wrist back, and the silver haired girl grabs her hips and quickly plants a kiss on her mouth, then leans back, lets her go, and says, “I’ll see you later!” and runs off.

Keiji stands still for a second, her mind reeling from the sudden kiss, and then blinks and finally has the sobriety to say, “Wait, what’s your…”

Ah, she’s gone.

“‘Kaashi!”

She turns around and Hinata is right there, grabbing at her wrists and pulling her through the crowd. “Daichi is getting us home! He’s sober, don’t worry!”

The rest of it is pretty blurred. She knows they leave through a window, sneak through the neighbors yard and somehow end up in the back of Daichi’s car, and then they’re cheering as they start driving away from the red and blue lights in the street.

“Where’d your shirt go?” Hinata asks, slightly breathless from all of the action.

Keiji’s mind is jumbled once again, and she’s pretty sobered up, but the events of the night are clouding her brain and she’s realizing she left one of her favorite black tops in the bathroom. She licks her lips in thought, and is caught off guard when she tastes something unfamiliar, possibly lemon? Holy shit, it’s because she made out with a girl. And the Jell-O shots… yeah. Holy shit. She tasted like lemon Jell-O.

“Keiji?” Hinata asks, and Keiji snaps her head up and responds.

“Someone spilled alcohol on me.”

“Ah, that sucks!” Hinata says. Keiji nods.

She’s zoned out for the rest of the ride home.

\--

Admittedly, Keiji was thinking about it for the entirety of Saturday. Well, thinking about  _ her _ .

She thought it over piece by piece. Did she regret any of what she did? No. Did she regret what she  _ didn’t  _ do? Yes.

How could she have not even asked for her name? How come neither of them thought about that? She felt warm inside every time she thought about the girl, and tried to come up with a name that would suit her (she couldn’t think of anything). Was Kou her full name? It was a pretty name, sure, but Keiji didn’t like referring to people informally.

Even worse, she hadn’t said a single thing to Hinata or Kageyama. The more she waited, the more hesitant she got, and she decided Saturday night that after a good night's sleep she would tell them on Sunday.

And she does.

She invites them over, and is anxiously playing the piano while waiting for them to arrive. Her mom and grandma were out at the store, thank god, so Keiji could 1. Play as loud as she wanted and 2. Safely talk about what she was about to talk about.

“We’re here!” Hinata’s voice rings through the house, and she lifts her fingers off of the keys, standing up and peeking around the corner to gesture for the two boys to follow her upstairs.

“Mom and G-Ma not here?” Hinata asks, and Keiji nods to him as they go into her room.

She lets them settle in on the bed, Hinata munching on some snack, while she closes the door carefully behind her and sits down in front of them.

“So, what did you wanna talk about?” Hinata asks, and Kageyama hits him slightly for chewing with his mouth open.

“Um…” Keiji starts, looking down at the floor and playing with her fingers. “I might need help.”

“Okay…” Hinata says slowly, pushing towards the edge of the bed and peering down at her spot on the floor with a curious expression.

“I want to find somebody. I mean… just a name. I doubt they’re looking for me, too, so, it would be embarrassing to reach out.”

The boys blink, and then Hinata is exclaiming, “Did you meet somebody?!”

Keiji nods and struggles to keep her face from heating up at the fact that she was even having this conversation. “At the party.”

“What?!” Hinata gasps.

“Who?” Kageyama asks.

“That’s the issue. I didn’t catch their name,” Keiji says quietly, purposefully using gender neutral terms, trying to avoid the topic as much as possible.

“Was it a girl?” Kageyama asks, and Keiji’s head snaps towards him.

“Kageyama, you can’t just--!” Hinata says, then sighs exasperatedly and takes a bite of his meat bun.

“It was,” Keiji nods. She searches their faces for anything, any trace of surprise, but none come, just a small smile from Kageyama and a grin from Hinata.

She knew they would understand. They’re dating, after all, but Keiji was still nervous to admit it out loud.

“Okay, give us a description,” Hinata says, finishing his meat bun and slapping his hands together to get whatever crumbs off of them.

“Um, tall, probably Kageyama’s height? Grey-ish hair, she had it in a bun, and was wearing hoops,” she says, “maybe a little loud. Third year. Her friend called her ‘Kou.’”

The boys go absolutely silent, their mouths shut. They look at each other, their jaws drop, and then they look back at a confused Keiji. “Kou…” Kageyama mumbles.

“Did you hook up with Suga?!” Hinata basically screams.

“Sugawara Koushi? No!” Keiji says, her eyes widening. “No, I know Sugawara from your school!” 

Hinata and Kageyama sigh in relief, Hinata dramatically letting his shoulders drop, as well. “Geez, I was about to say! That would have been weird.” He then sits upright, starts thinking, and says, “I’m not sure about anyone else.”

Keiji sighs, feeling defeated, realizing she will never see her again.

Oh well. It’s not like this mystery girl was thinking about her, too. She might even hookup with girls all the time, or boys? Both?

\--

Either way, Keiji is convinced she was not special to the girl, that she would never see her again, and tried not to make her sad that upcoming Monday.

Still, as she walked through the halls at school, she played with her skirt and tucked her hair behind her ear probably ten times more than usual, examining every person’s face that she walked by, looking in the classes she passed, perking up every time she heard a loud voice. It was endless disappointment that she was setting herself up for, but she couldn’t help but have some hope. Technically, there was a possibility she went to her school and didn’t know. She didn’t exactly seem like the smart type, so maybe she wasn’t taking the same classes as Keiji, even with the year difference.

Keiji sighs and walks into homeroom, sits down at her desk and leans a cheek into the palm of her hand, trying not to let her face fall into a frown.

She hears the familiar laugh of her friend at the doorway, and she turns her head to smile politely at Konoha. 

“Hey, Akaashi,” she grins, laughing breathlessly like she just experienced some commotion. Although Keiji was curious, she kept quiet. She was never much of a talker, anyways.

“Good morning,” she says back.

“Hey, you didn’t happen to make out with a girl at the party, did you?”

Oh.

Keiji almost chokes on her own saliva and her eyes feel dry the second they widen to their full extent. Konoha was joking, she knew she was joking, but  _ holy shit how did she fucking know that _ ?

“What?! Did you?!” Konoha asks again, serious this time, her smile falling off of her face.

“Why?” Keiji asks, barely even being able to get her voice above a whisper at how shocked she was.

“Bokuto’s been looking for this girl since Saturday night, she said she had short black hair, but I didn’t think…” Konoha trails off.

“Her name,” Keiji says. “What’s her full name?”

“Bokuto Koutarou,” Konoha responds.

Koutarou, Koutarou, Koutarou. Koutarou!

“Can you take me to her?” Keiji asks quickly, and she has to admit, it was pretty out of character for her to be this frantic about something, but she doesn’t care.

“Like, right now?” Konoha asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, um…” she watches as the teacher settles into his seat, and she looks back at Konoha, saying, “At lunch.”

Konoha nods, and they start class.

\--

This is why Keiji always thinks before she speaks.

  
Konoha walks her down the halls hurriedly as they search for the girl -- Bokuto Koutarou -- and Keiji feels like she’s going to have a breakdown.

Maybe she shouldn’t have asked to do this. Maybe she should have just asked for her number, because actually having to speak to her, and in  _ school _ ? Keiji felt like her heart was going to detonate and kill her.

“Bokuto!” Konoha yells, and Keiji looks up, and she’s right there, holy shit holy fuck shit fuck maybe she could just turn around right now--

“Ah!” 

She locks eyes with Bokuto and oh, she looks really good in her uniform and -- my god is that a mullet? Bokuto has a mullet. Keiji is going to  _ die _ .

“Ah!” Bokuto repeats, standing in the middle of the hallway, and people are definitely struggling to side step the three of them, but Keiji couldn’t be concerned with that right now.

Then, Bokuto is coming closer and closer until she plants her hands on Keiji’s arms, and is leaning over her, exclaiming, “I’m Bokuto! Koutarou!”

Keiji is all too shocked to be smiling, like she probably should be, so with wide eyes, she responds, “Yes. Hello, Bokuto-san.”

Bokuto grins and asks, “You, too! You tell me too!”

Keiji notices immediately that she is loud, and is probably a bit more energetic than she was when she was tipsy, and her lips turn upwards as she blushes, looking down and saying, “Akaashi. Keiji.”

“Akaashi,” Bokuto says, like testing it on her tongue, than, more confidently, says, “Akaashi, wanna go on a date?”

Keiji gapes. “A da--”

“Or we don’t have to. To start, we could eat lunch together,” Bokuto says, and excitedly begins pulling Keiji towards the bread stand.

She loosens her grip on Akaashi’s arm and then stills in front of her, turning around slowly and softening her smile. “Is that okay?” Bokuto asks her, looking slightly worried.

Akaashi doesn’t have any words, shocked at how eccentric she is, so she clamps her mouth shut to contain a giggle and nods her head. Bokuto beams.

\--

It’s Friday night. Akaashi grabs her purse, looks in the mirror one more time, clasps her hands together, unclasps, and then rushes down the stairs.

“I’m off, guys!” She says, trying to get past without any questioning.

It doesn’t work.

“Where did you say you’re going, again?” Her mom asks, and Keiji turns to her briskly, sees her casually washing the dishes.

Well, she hadn’t said anything about where she was going. On purpose. She sucks in a breath and says, “A date.”

Her mom drops the plate she was holding, and Keiji flinches as it hits the sink. Even her grandma looked up.

“What?” Her mom asks, turning to her.

“A date, and they’re here, so I’ll be going now--”

“Keiji!” Her mom gasps, and Keiji stands still with a grimace. “Well, can I go meet him? I didn’t approve of this.”

Keiji opens her mouth, shuts it, opens it, shuts it, then nods. Her mom quickly dries her hands and flattens out her blouse, following Keiji to the front door.

Keiji pauses when they get to it, takes a deep breath, and whips it open.

Sure enough, Bokuto stands in front of them, her eyes lit up when she sees Keiji, then widens when she sees her mother beside her. “Oh! Ms. Akaashi, I--”

“Come on, Bokuto-san,” Keiji says, grabbing her hand and rushing away from the house, down the lawn and into Bokuto’s passenger seat of her car while Bokuto gets in the driver's seat.

“I think I just came out to her, sorry,” Keiji blurts.

“What?!” Bokuto blurts as she whips her head towards her.

Keiji hears her phone chime, grabs it, looks at it.

**Mom <3:**

**I love you, Ji. <3 I hope you have fun. Invite Bokuto-san over soon. :)**

Keiji releases a breath, holds the phone up to Bokuto to read, and Bokuto breaks out into a grin. Leaning across the seats, Bokuto nuzzles her face into Keiji’s neck, and Keiji laughs beautifully as she lightly grabs onto Bokuto’s hair and rubs her cheek to the top of her head.

Bokuto pulls away, her hair an absolute mess, some pieces staticy enough to try sticking to the ceiling of the car, and grips Keiji’s hand one more time before grabbing the gear and going into drive.

“All good?” Bokuto asks, peering at Keiji once more before she starts driving.

“All good,” Keiji smiles.

And so, they go on their first of many dates.


End file.
